


In a Flash

by bettername2come



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Caitlin Snow is Killer Frost, Cisco Ramon Becomes Vibe, F/M, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:03:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5684563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettername2come/pseuds/bettername2come
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some short Flash stories originally posted on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "You don't have to stay."

STAR Labs was eerily quiet. Caitlin was on the run. Joe and Barry were searching for her. And Harry was…somewhere, probably doing something vaguely shady. Leaving Cisco and Iris to fill the silences. And neither of them was feeling like their normal chatty selves.

“I’m fine. Really. You don’t have to stay,” Cisco said, struggling to sit up straight up and prove his point, only to fail miserably and slip back down onto his elbows. _Shit._

Iris gently pushed his shoulder back against the pillows of his hospital bed and moved the blanket back over his shoulders from where it had fallen. “You’re concussed and hypothermic. I’m staying. Deal with it.” She pulled her chair a little closer to the bed and raised her eyebrows, daring him to try to stand again. And somewhere in that stern demeanor, Cisco could suddenly see the West family resemblance. 

Cisco sighed and leaned back against the stack of pillows behind him. Yeah, he wasn’t going anywhere. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“What’s there to talk about? My best friend turned dark side and tried to kill me. Happens all the time.” 

“Caitlin did not turn go dark side, and she didn’t try to kill you. She’s hurt. She’s confused. You didn’t see the look on her face. She was terrified. She thought you were dead. She thought we were safer without her. That’s why she ran. It’s the same reason Ronnie and Professor Stein told Caitlin to stay away from them.” Iris gave a humorless laugh. “And you’re not exactly the first one to have their best friend lose it and try to kill people.” 

“That was different, Barry was – ” 

“Barry was not himself. And whatever’s happening to Caitlin, she’s not herself. They will find her. And we will find some way to get her back to herself and help her deal with these powers. And when she’s back, you’re not going to have done anything stupid like overwork yourself into unconsciousness trying to solve something that you can’t solve. 

“Oh. So you’re on to my plan then?” 

Iris rolled her eyes. “Anyone who’s spent more than five minutes with you would be on to that plan, Cisco.” Her voice grew softer. “You can’t cure her of this. She’s a metahuman now. She has powers. And she’s gonna have to find a way to deal with that and find her new normal. Like Barry did. Like you did.” 

“Yeah, murder visions and permanent hypothermia. Superpowers are awesome.” 

Iris passed him a mug. “Drink your tea. You’re cranky when you’re cold.” 

Cisco obliged, trying to fight the shiver that passed through him as he reached for the drink. “Her whole life is going to change. One moment, one accident, and one second where she lost control and now Caitlin is going to have a lifetime of guilt. A lifetime with powers that she never wanted. She already lost Ronnie. Twice. She shouldn’t have to lose anything else.” 

“Life’s not fair. But she’s strong, and she has us and she’ll find a way to make this work.” 

Cisco sipped his tea. “When’d you become such an expert on rolling with the punches?” 

“Somewhere between my boyfriend killing himself to stop his evil descendant and my supposedly dead mother coming out of the woodwork with my long-lost little brother.” 

“Oh. Our lives are weird.” 

“Don’t I know it.”


	2. "I'm not cut out for this."

“I’m not cut out for this,” Cisco said, putting the suit back down on the table.

Barry looked up from his computer screen. “No. Not this again. Dude, you’ve been planning this for two months. You’ve been going on nonstop about being on the other end of the comms for once. You made me look at seventeen different suit designs before picking the perfect one, and Iris said you called her twelve times last week about the best way to describe your powers in her first article about you. You’re going.” 

“Uh-uh. Plans change. And this was a bad one. Like the ‘hey, let’s make a cold gun and hide it in a locker’ level of bad plans.” 

“It is not a bad plan. It’s what you do when you get superpowers.” 

Cisco laughed. “Really? ‘Cause in my experience, you hide them from everybody while having nightmare visions of your own death.” 

“Okaay,” Barry said slowly. “So maybe you don’t have the best experience with getting new powers. But, dude, you’ve been raving about finally having a power that can kick ass. You even let _Oliver_ train you.” 

“See what I mean about bad plans?” 

“But it worked! And you managed to not get shot in the back, which is more than I can say.” 

“Pretty sure he’s more willing to shoot you since you can heal.” 

“It still hurts,” Barry sulked. “Not the point. The point is you won a fight against the Green Arrow. You’re ready.” 

Cisco shook his head. “What if I’m not? What if I go out there and someone gets tonight hurt because the tech guy tried to play hero?” 

“You’re not _playing_ hero, Cisco. You _are_ a hero. And I’m not just saying that because you’ve saved my life. You’ve helped save this city, you’ve helped saved Starling. It’s time for you to do it on your own.” Cisco looked nervous again. Barry rolled his eyes. “Not really on your own.” Barry gestured to the computers. “I’ll be here. I’ve got your back. Something goes wrong, tell me and I’ll be there in a second.” Barry shrugged. “But you’re not going to need me. You got this.” 

“Maybe.” 

“There’s just one little problem with your costume,” Barry said. He reaches across the table and picks up the sunglasses that lay across the suit. “You really think these are the best identity concealer you’ve got?” 

Cisco yanked the glasses out of Barry’s hands. “People can’t figure out that the Arrow and the Green Arrow are the same guy. Supervillains who know me and Caitlin work with the Flash can’t seem to figure out that the tall, skinny guy we hang out with might just be him. Trust me. The glasses will work.”


	3. Shop Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity and Iris bond in the most stereotypical of girly ways. Barry and Oliver whine in the most stereotypical of boy ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure this counts as crack!fic.

“We need to get out of here. Now!” Barry whispered.

Oliver shook his head. “No, we’ve been through worse situations than this. We can handle it.” 

“If we don’t leave now, we may never get another chance.” 

“Come on, they’re not taking that long…are they?” 

Barry plopped down on the couch beside Oliver, Iris’s bags in hand. “I don’t know. I can’t tell if I’m accidentally superspeeding or if they’re actually as slow as I think they are. Whose idea was this?” 

Oliver smiled. “I believe it was Iris’s. She and Felicity don’t get a chance to talk enough, she said. Although I’m still not convinced that angling for an interview with one of the youngest female CEOs of a Fortune 500 company isn’t somewhere on the agenda.” 

Felicity popped back out of the dressing room, in what must’ve been her fifteenth dress of the hour. “So what do you think, this one or the blue?” She held up her hand to 

Oliver before he could answer. “Not you, I know you’re gonna pick the green one, you always pick the green one. Barry?” 

“The green one, definitely,” he said, despite the fact that he could not possibly care less. 

Felicity eyed him suspiciously. “You two have been spending too much time together.” She closed the dressing room door again. 

“You’re rich now!” Barry called. “You can always get them both! Both is good!” 

Oliver shook his head. “It’s not gonna work. I’ve tried it.” 

“They said they wanted to pick up a couple of things at the mall before dinner. A couple! It’s been three hours! I’m starving,” Barry whined. 

“All right, bring some food back here,” Oliver said. 

Barry nodded. “Yeah, okay. Watch Iris’s stuff,” he said, passing the bags over. He was gone and back before Oliver could even count how many bags Barry had handed him. But there he was, chowing down on the last remaining bite of his hot dog and sipping on a milkshake. 

Oliver stared expectantly. “Where’s mine?” 

“Your what?” 

“My food. I told you to bring something back here.” 

“Oh. I thought you just meant for me.” Barry gestured with his empty hands. “And I finished it.” 

“Why would I tell you to bring it back when I know you can inhale it the second you get it like the Tasmanian Devil?” 

“Hey! I resent that! Everyone knows I am the Roadrunner.” 

Oliver’s voice deepened. “Food. Now.” 

“I spent all my cash.” 

“What? How did you do that?” 

“I had like twenty bucks. And I bought a milkshake and five hot dogs and left a tip because it’s a huge pain to everyone when I skip to the front of the line like that, so I’m out of cash.” 

“Can you just steal something for me and then pay it back later?” 

“And risk the poor high school kid at the register losing his job cause he claims the Flash stole his orders? No. I have a reputation to maintain in this town, you know.” 

Oliver sighs. “Fine.” He lifts up the flap on Felicity’s purse. 

Barry throws out his hand. “Whoa. Whoa. What are you doing?” 

“Borrowing ten bucks.” 

“Did she tell you you could do that?” 

“She’s not gonna mind, Barry. Remember, she’s the one with the job right now.” 

“Taking money out of your fiancée’s purse? Not cool.” 

Iris stepped out. “Hey, Bear, can you get this zipper for me? What are you doing?” she asked as she saw Oliver rifling through Felicity’s purse. 

Oliver froze like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. “I – what – no, Felicity said – ” Iris marched over and yanked the purse from his hand. “Oh my God, you have a sister, you know the code.” She turned to Barry. “And you – you knew better than to let him.” 

“How is this my fault?” 

“The snacks were your idea,” Oliver said petulantly. 

“I need a hundred and fifty thousand calories a day, what’s your excuse?” 

Iris rolled her eyes and knocked on the dressing room door. “Felicity! Oliver’s stealing from you purse!” 

“It wasn’t stealing!” 

Felicity stepped back out of the dressing room in a pencil skirt and peplum top. “Hey, hands off the purse,” she said to Oliver as she took it back from Iris. “Do you have any idea what kind of technology I keep in here? The last thing I need is you two screwing something up because you were rooting through my purse.” 

“Felicity, can you get this zipper for me?” 

“Yeah, sure. Come on in.” 

Iris stepped into the dressing room, giving Barry and Oliver one last glare before closing then door and letting out a giggle. 

“Shh. Do you want them to hear you?” Felicity said, fighting to hide her own laughter. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Did you see them, though? They look so pathetic.” Iris peeked back at them through the crack in the door. “You think they’ve suffered enough? Maybe we should just finish up and go to dinner.” 

“Please. This is nothing compared to the stuff they put us through. A few hours of boredom compared to all the near death experiences and assassins and comas and …” Felicity looked at Iris to finish the sentence. 

“Psychic gorillas.” 

“Psychic gorillas,” Felicity finished. “Wait, it that real? Like that’s not a metaphor or something?” 

“No, completely real.” 

“All right, then they’ve definitely earned some ‘hold my purse, I’m going shopping’ time. And by my count I’ve got three more dresses to try on.” Felicity gestured down to Iris’s legs. “And if you aren’t getting the over-the-knee boots pass them here, ‘cause I am. Those two aren’t the only ones who look good in leather.”


	4. Frost and Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which obvious solutions are obvious.

Caitlin studied the shackle around her wrist, trying to decide if it were possible to pick the lock. Not that it would do much good. She would still be trapped on the wrong earth with a speedster supervillain after her. She swore if she ever got out of this mess, she’d wear bobby pins in her hair every day just for situations like this. And have Cisco make her some kind of really compact speedster-proof weapon. And go to that self-defense class with Iris.  And, you know, make sure to never date a serial killer ever again.

A serial killer. She’d actually dated a serial killer, with no suspicions. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have fallen for the hero act?

She heard a noise in the distance and tensed up, anticipating a whoosh of air as Zoom ran back in, only he didn’t. Instead she heard slow, steady footsteps.  Not the steps of a speedster.

“Well, you certainly managed to get yourself into trouble,” came a familiar voice.

Caitlin’s eyes widened, taking in the pale skin, blonde hair and – wait, was that blue lipstick? Ok, so there were clearly some questionable fashion choices on this earth. “What are you doing here?”

“Reverb’s doppelganger contacted me,” Killer Frost said, reaching for the chain locking Caitlin to the bed rail. “I guess he is figuring out his powers.”

“He was highly motivated,” Caitlin said.

“So I see,” Killer Frost said as the chain shattered. “We have to get out of here. He’ll be back soon.” She glanced over her shoulder as if turning to a voice only she could hear. “I got her, Vibe. Open the breach.”


	5. Alternate Zoom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My idea for who Zoom could be written back in January that I just discovered while moving files to my new computer. Completely wrong, but I think I like my idea better.

_I’m dying_ , Barry thinks desperately, not for the first time.  But Zoom, for once, doesn’t want to do this quickly. He’s dragged Barry with him through the breach, to his lair, to end this.

Barry reaches up, clawing at Zoom’s mask. The mask that almost seemed to be part of his face. And much to his surprise actually manages to remove it. Zoom doesn’t even try to stop him. That’s how confident he is that he’s already won this.

Oliver Queen stares back at him with heavily made up eyes.

“Ollie? What? I don’t – we’re friends.”

Oliver drops him back to the ground. “We’re not.” He’s still using the Zoom voice, and Barry wonders vaguely if that’s the only voice he has now.

“In my world we are. My world’s Oliver, he became a hero. How did you become… _this_?”

“Heroes die, Flash. I told you that before.”

“What happened to you? The island?”

Zoom’s grip on Barry’s throat tightens. “Stop. You don’t understand.”

“I can figure out a few things. Mirakuru wasn’t the only drug on the island, was it? Velocity, right?”

“I didn’t make it to the island. This happened on the Amazo.”

Barry wracks his brain for the name. He doesn’t recognize it. Not surprising. He doesn’t know ninety-nine percent of what happened to his Oliver on Lian Yu.

Zoom’s eyes change quickly from blue to black. “Oliver Queen is dead!”


End file.
